The middleweight championship

The NatWest Challenge should be a keen tussle between two teams that have forgotten how to win consistently in the limited-overs version of the game, each desperate to run into some semblance of form before the Champions Trophy. They have taken remarkably similar paths since the last World Cup, where India reached the final and England didn't even reach the Super Six - partly because they refused to travel to Zimbabwe.

India finished that tournament regarded as the only team capable of challenging Australia's continued dominance of the one-day game, although they had been beaten out of sight in both their games against the world champions. En route to that final, they had destroyed English hopes at Durban, with Ashish Nehra picking up 6 for 23 when he wasn't puking up bananas by the side of the pitch.

Since then, India's form has nosedived, with 16 wins and 16 defeats in 35 matches. Worryingly, they have won just eight matches against top-notch opposition, losing twice as many. And in their last ten games, they have managed five wins and four losses - a middling record which reads far worse when you consider that two of those successes were against the United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh.

After the World Cup debacle, England have played just 24 times, with a 12-10 record. And their recent form has been terrible, with three wins and six defeats in their last ten games. On the bright side, this is a team that has charged up the Test-match charts with 16 wins - against just three defeats - in their last 23 Tests. In the same period, India have played just nine Tests, winning three and losing two. Those figures suggest that England have got their priorities right, while India's think-tank only talks of catching Australia, without doing anything about it.

In the one-day arena, India have held the edge for a fair while. Since England's tour of India in 2001-02, the sides have met 12 times, with India winning seven to England's four. More importantly, none of England's victories has been convincing, except for a Ronnie Irani-inspired 64-run triumph at The Oval in July 2002, when India had already qualified for the NatWest Series final.

England, though, can point to two of the most improved players in world cricket. Steve Harmison has matured into a fast bowler of genuine quality, capable of getting steepling bounce from even placid tracks. As for Andrew Flintoff, whose shirtless celebrations so infuriated Sourav Ganguly at Mumbai in 2002, he has displaced Chris Cairns as the most destructive allrounder in international cricket - a powerful striker of the cricket ball, who can be just as menacing with the white ball in hand.

England have yet to master the one-day format, and are probably the most tactically naïve of the leading teams, but they do possess four or five individuals capable of winning games single-handed. The same goes for India, who boast perhaps the best batting line-up in the world on paper, but have lost the edge that won them nine straight matches at the World Cup.

But with Sachin Tendulkar missing all three games, now is as good a time as any to experiment with the batting. Virender Sehwag has often expressed a desire to go back to being a middle-order batsman, and India could do much worse than try out Dinesh Karthik, the wicketkeeper who has impressed many on the domestic circuit with his clean hitting. There could also be an opportunity for Rohan Gavaskar - enterprising bat, useful bowler and frisky fielder - to stake a claim for the No. 7 slot that Mohammad Kaif has commandeered since his Lord's heroics in July 2002.

Kaif continues to be brilliant in the field, but lacks the versatility and weight of shot to produce a late blitzkrieg. That remains India's greatest weakness, the absence of a Kapil Dev/Lance Klusener/Chris Cairns-type finisher. Without that, and with the batting order not always being equal to the sum of its parts, they struggled at the Asia Cup, where they were comprehensively outplayed by Sri Lanka in the final.

Even if these three matches aren't anything more than a warm-up for the Champions Trophy, they will provide plenty to think about for both India and England. India set too much store by one-day cricket - for financial reasons more than anything else? - but haven't had the results to show for it. Meanwhile, England's bumbling incompetence in the shorter version is in stark contrast to the strides they have made in the Test arena, and surely the result of not playing enough one-dayers.

With Sri Lanka having staked their own claim to second place behind Australia, neither side will want to cede more ground in the run-up to the Champions Trophy. They will also have learnt, from watching South Africa, just how quickly yesterday's pretender to the throne can become today's skid-row dweller.

India enjoy English conditions, and their greater one-day savvy might just give them the edge, provided they have managed to shake off the early-season rust that was in evidence in Sri Lanka and Amsterdam.

England (probable): 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Vikram Solanki, 3 Andrew Strauss, 4 Michael Vaughan (capt), 5 Andrew Flintoff, 6 Paul Collingwood, 7 Geraint Jones (wk), 8 Ashley Giles, 9 Alex Wharf, 10 Darren Gough, 11 Stephen Harmison.

India (probable): 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Yuvraj Singh, 3 Rahul Dravid (wk), 4 VVS Laxman, 5 Sourav Ganguly (capt), 6 Rohan Gavaskar, 7 Mohammad Kaif, 8 Irfan Pathan, 9 Anil Kumble, 10 Lakshmipathy Balaji, 11 Ashish Nehra.